Maybe my ironies masked the point, or maybe Talkington
missed it in his review of my "Sin,
Science and Society" paper (S&N #4, pp 79‑80). I wouldn't
want the contemporary philosophy of science community to have much to say about
science, science policy or research, because I think they would say mostly wrong
things; and this on the grounds that they have very little relation to either
the practice of science or to the social uses of science. The refinements of
methodological critique and of historical reconstruction are very important,
but not to the point I was talking about.

I also don't think Lenin solved the problem; and
Soviet practice until quite recently has been a disaster in this area. It was
Mitin and dogmatists of his sort who creamed the Soviet scientific establishment,
and were almost universally despised by the working scientists, dialectical
materialists among them included. So which philosophers? Soviet philosophy of
science of the last period has become quite sophisticated, less dominated by
the Apparatchiki, but is little known in this country. What its critical or
guiding role for scientific practice is I don't know; but that is because, I
suspect, it doesn't pretend to assume one.

I wouldn't argue that philosophers should not have
a role in the clarification and critique of scientific practice, in general,
because I don't think this is a general question. What is general is that philosophy
should have a role in sciencea position I am quite clearly associated
with in much of my published work: but not any old philosophy, and certainly
not the pseudo‑philosophy which characterized the Stalin period and the
Lysenko disaster. A "guiding" role would be, to my mind, much too
strong, and also dangerous. Platonic philosopher‑kings are to be dethroned
wherever they arise. They are autocrats. Science has to become philosophicaland
historically has been, in its deepest moments. But no philosophical vanguard
of the scientific proletariat, please. Critical collaborators, yes; but modest
ones, willing to learn from the practice of scientists and the social practices
of a society what science is and what science needs. Where Lenin spoke of a
partnershipwith which I agreethat's fine. Where a senior partner
decides policy, I disagree.

Talkington makes, I think, an elementary error in
misinterpreting what I described as a "slight ripple in the pond"which
is in fact, the case for the philosophy of science I was talking about concretelyfor
a normative argument that philosophers in general should be "sideline
critics" (his words, not mine.) At present, philosophically‑minded
scientists and scientifically‑minded philosophers are beginning to make
a bigger ripplee.g. in current debates in biology (about genetics, evolutionary
theory. sociobiology) and in some of the social sciences. That's all to the
good. But it is a beginning only. In any case, I prefer a small ripple, to a
big splash, if the splash comes from dumping philosophical garbage into the
pond of science.

I must say that among working scientists in the
physical sciences (including Marxists) the "potential value of the dialectical
materialist mode of thought" remains a vague promise. because the heuristics
of the mode of thought count for very little unless they can be interpreted
specifically and in detailand they haven't been in a very long time. I
am all for following through on this, but it will require an internal critique
of older and inadequate versions of dialectics in science which badly need to
be discarded or "aufgehoben". Appeals to the classics don't bake any
scientific or philosophical bread.

Marx W. WartofskyDept of Philosophy
Boston University

My criticism of the Wartofsky paper (S&N
#4),was intended to be concrete and based on the internal
evidence of the paper itself, which seemed to be written from the viewpoint
of a sideline critic rather than that of a philosopher working in partnership
with scientists. Since Wartofsky agrees with Lenin on the need for such a partnership,
his paper would have been more constructive if, along with his perceptive criticism
of bourgeois philosophy of science, he had presented also the alternative Marxist
approach.

I think that Wartofsky will find Science and
Nature in basic agreement with the substance of his arguments. For example,
we do not propose in any way that philosophy should have a dominant role. In
criticizing his paper, I proposed only that Marxist philosophers can and should
"help scientists themselves clarify their working philosophy, that which
actually guides scientific practice from day to day." This urgent goal
can be achieved only by voluntary cooperation in which the philosopher
seeks to grasp the essence of the concrete scientific problem while the scientist
seeks to understand how Marxist philosophical principles can help illuminate
the same problem. Creative collaboration along this line will help advance both
science and philosophy. But we can expect that the process will be neither easy
nor peaceful all the time. Better to argue out the issues in the pages of Science
and Nature.

Secondly, we all agree that the Stalin period was
a disaster, but this must be seen as the result of an arbitrary intervention
by the state into the internal affairs of not only science but also philosophy
of science (and both may still suffer somewhat in the USSR from the effects
of the Stalin distortion). On the other band, our immediate responsibility is
more directly concerned with the distorting effects of the system under which
we live and practice. Whatever degree of professional freedom we may enjoy under
state monopoly capitalism and multi‑national imperialism must not be permitted
to delude us concerning the insidious effects of bourgeois philosophy on the
scientific enterprise. Problems of both these sorts, concerning the three‑way
relations of science, philosophy and society, are open for discussion and debate
in Science and Nature.

Lastly, though Lenin has useful things to say, we
can agree that he did not solve all our problems. The physical sciences, as
Wartofsky suggests, need particularly the articulation of Marxist philosophical
principles as they apply to concrete problems. But to see this urgent need only
in terms of "an internal critique" of dialectics seems quite one-sided.
Equally necessary is the need for analyzing the prevailing positivist/empiricist
agnosticism which permeates physics. Personally, I think that J. D. Bernal has
pointed the way toward such an analysis:

Positivism is not at root a philosophy derived from physics . . . but it
has bitten very deep into physics, especially in Britain and America, where
a traditional distrust of all philosophy makes scientists unconsciously an
easy prey to the first mystical nonsense that is sold to them. The relativism
of Einstein, the indeterminacy of Heisenberg, the complementarity of Bohr,
take a positivist form, not for any intrinsically physical reason but because
they were conceived by men brought up to have a positivist outlook . . . As
it stands, the whole of modern theoretical physics has no coherence: it is
full of logical inconsistencies and circular arguments. [Science in History,
MITPress 1971, p. 861.]

That's my opinion. And, of course, it's subject
to rebuttal in the pages of Science and Nature.

Our primary editorial purpose is to demonstrate
that the principles of dialectical and historical materialism provide the most
useful philosophical framework for the cognitive problems of the practicing
scientist. And this is not a "vague promise": see the excellent statement
by Nobelist Nikolai N. Semyenov, "On Intuition Versus Dialectical Logic"
(S&N #1). We believe that our pedagogical purpose is often best served
by publishing side by side the opposing views and critical comments of Marxists
who disagree on how Marxism applies to scientific problems. An instructive example
is the continuing discussion of causality in quantum mechanics (S&N
#3, #4 and this issue). There are many more such issues in biology, physics
and mathematics which need the same kind of ventilation.

Lester Talkington
Tappan, New York

The Dialectics of Dialectical Logic

Thanks for the material you sent. Your journal looks
quite interesting, and I wish to subscribe, starting with the 3 back issues.

I appreciate the opportunity to comment on your
Bibliographic Brief [S&N
No. 4] of my article on contradiction in dialectical materialism [Sci &
Soc 41: 257; 1977]. My intent was to show that real dialectics and their
representation in thought are not incompatible with classical logic, and that
their presentation in strict Hegelian terms is unnecessarily obscure and even
misleading. For the record, I do maintain that nature and that part of nature
we call the mind, and also society, are dialectical. All the essential characteristics
are there: the unity and struggle of opposites, qualitative transformations,
etc. The contention is over the compatibility of classical logic and dialectics,
and the worthiness of a Hegelian logic (or of a separate dialectical logic at
all).

To restate the crux of my position: a formal logic
per se is an abstract system, rather like a game, and need not have any
relation to either natural thought or nature. Formal logics are non‑contextual,
so let's forget about them for the time being. We are concerned here with natural
logic, the logic implicit in natural thought, and its ability to represent the
fundamental, dynamic patterns of the natural world. Natural logics are contextual,
and I would suggest that any dialectical process can be described in terms that
are compatible with classical logic taken contextually, i.e., the rules of classical
logic applied to the particular dialectical context (for example, discussions
of dialectics are, for the most part, consistent with classical logic). Some
will object that doing so will distort dialectics into a nondialectical form,
but this is not inevitableif I am correct in contending that the essential
characteristics of dialectical processes are not incompatible with a classically
consistent representation (description).

That strict Hegelian dialectical logic and classical
logic (as man‑made representational systems) are incompatible, is not
the point here. The question is what framework most lucidly describes (or captures)
the characteristics of actual dialectical processes. Every concrete example
I have ever seen purporting the incompatibility of classical logic and dialectics
has misrepresented and misapplied the former. (Several such examples originating
with Hegel, Marx, et al. are discussed in my Science and Society paper.)
We can argue all day in the abstract (because we're speaking different languages),
but can any defender of Hegelian dialectics come forward with a concrete example,
perhaps from the natural sciences, of a dialectical process that cannot be described
within a classically consistent framework?

Concerning the accusation that I am a bourgeois
philosopher, I believe as a Marxist that "individual" consciousness
is social in nature, and that, being a philosopher in a bourgeois society, my
philosophical consciousness is bound to have socially and historically delimited
constraints. Until the day we are born and raised in a mature socialist world,
we are all "bourgeois philosophers". In the meantime, we might restrict
our use of the term to those ideologues who push a clear pro‑capitalist,
anti‑Marxist line.

Michael Mark Mussachia180 Calle Cuervo
San Clemente, CA 92672

We welcome Mussachia as a subscriber and look forward
to more dialog with him on the philosophical problems of science. We find some
definite areas of agreement in his letter. For example, when Mussachia affirms
that the "part of nature we call the mind" is dialectical, and when
he defines "natural logic" in terms of "natural thought, and
its ability to represent the fundamental, dynamic patterns of the natural world",
it seems that only differences of terminology separate him from the Marxist
concept of dialectical logic. We can further agree with Mussachia's central
argument that the description of a dialectical process must be "compatible"
or "consistent" with traditional logic; scientific discourse demands
logical construction of descriptive statements.

But Mussachia's discussion stops short; it fails
to deal with some essential aspects of natural thought. We must ask whether
natural thought consists exclusively of descriptive statements? Is not Mussachia's
account incomplete since he fails to discuss those creative thought processes
which, it is widely agreed, cannot be explained in terms of classical, formal
logic? How does Mussachia propose to account for the origin and development
of new scientific concepts and hypotheses? Karl Marx, that incorrigible dialectician,
has shown how a different kind of logic is required for thought processes at
the inquiry stage (before descriptive presentation is even possible). Discussing
his own use of the dialectical method, Marx wrote that

the method of presentation must differ from that of inquiry. The latter has
to appropriate the material in detail, to analyse its different forms of development,
to trace out their inner connexion. Only after this work is done, can the
actual movement be adequately described. If this is done successfully, if
the life of the subject‑matter is ideally reflected as in a mirror,
then it may appear as if we had before us a mere a priori construction.
[Capital, N.Y. 1967. i, 19 (preface to 2nd German edition).]

Thus Marx explains why the usual description of
scientific results makes it appear that scientific thought proceeds according
to the laws of classical logic, though the actual thought processes develop
dialectically (whether or not the scientist has ever heard of dialectics as
the natural mode of investigative thought). Engels and Lenin dealt at much greater
length with the special role that dialectical. logic plays in the conceptualization
processes of scientific research; the interested reader may turn to their works
to learn more about what is missing from Mussachia's account of natural thought
(see Basic Bookshelf list this issue).

We must also address the central question posed
by Mussachia: "what framework most lucidly describes (or captures) the
characteristics of actual dialectical processes?" Agreeing already that
any description must consist of logically consistent statements, the answer
is simply that the framework of the so‑called "laws of thought"
based on classical or formal logic are necessary but not at all sufficient for
the purpose. Here, Marx provides an excellent "concrete example" in
Capital itself, where the dialectical mode of inquiry is forever shining
through his logically constructed statements describing the results obtained.
"To Marx," says Robert S. Cohen, "exposition and articulation,
when carefully accomplished, showed the movement of thought, a conceptual dynamic."
[Dict. Sci. Biog. xv, 411.]

Finally, there is the matter of name‑calling.
I objected to Mussachia characterizing as "Papists of the Left" those
like myself who find dialectical. materialism a useful philosophy. He objects
to my characterizing as "bourgeois prejudice" his attacks on dialetical
materialism. I agree that we should drop all such labels and work together toward
rooting out bourgeois elements within Marxist philosophy, learning to speak
the same language, and moving the world toward mature socialism.

Lester Talkington

In Defense of History

I enjoyed the item on Popper in which you saw fit
to invoke my authority [S&N
No. 4p 2] and agree with it wholeheartedly. It seems to me that
his resistance to scientific analysis of historical subjects has done great
harm to both historical science and philosophy of history.

Here is a nice quote from Lenin on sociobiology.
Note that even back in 1906 the same terminology was used:

The author [Bogdanov] begins . . . by refuting the "eclectic socio‑biological
attempts of Lange, Ferri, Woltmann and many others" . . . Can anyone
imagine anything more sterile, lifeless and scholastic than this [Bogdanov's]
string of biological and energeticist terms that contribute nothing and can
contribute nothing in the sphere of the social sciences? . . . meaningless
terms which seem to lend "profundity" to the questions but which
in no way differ from the eclectic biologico‑sociological attempts
of Lange & Co.! . . . all he is doing is to reclothe the results already
obtained . . . in a biological and energeticist terminology. The whole attempt
is worthless from beginning to end, for the concepts "selection",
"assimilation and dissimilation" of energy, the energetic balance,
and so forth are, when applied to the sciences, but empty phrases.In fact, an inquiry into social phenomena and an elucidation of the method
of the social sciences cannot be undertaken with the aid of these concepts.
[Materialism and Empirio‑Criticism, N.Y. 1970, pp. 339‑340.]

Val DusekDept of Philosophy
Univ. of New Hampshire

PS: With respect to the conflict over "real"
contradictions in nature, see the pamphlet by G. von Wright, Time, Change,
and Contradiction (Cambridge Univ. Press 1969). One of the world's most
eminent logicians argues here for the choice: either real contradictions,
or totally discrete, atomistic time. V.D.

On Feminist Critiques of Science

Elizabeth Fee has presented a very constructive
analysis, grounded in the realities of our time. She clearly makes a good case
for the "feminist critique as a tool for seeing what it might mean in practice
to liberate science from the inherited habits of thought inscribed by the previous
separation of human experience into mutually contradictory realms" . .
. ["Is There a Feminist Science?" [S&N No. 4].

A good point was made by Fee when she notes that
scientists today are salaried workers in "big science." As a matter
of fact, engineers and scientists have a long history as mercenaries serving
feudal lords and military empires, and this pattern has now extended to the
present era, dominated by the large industrial corporation. In the early days
of modern science, objectivity and disinterestedness were a part of the self‑protective
ideology of small‑scale science. Scientists, whether they know it or not.
have now evolved beyond this idealistic "objectivity" and must seek
personal integrity in ethical and political commitment.

Norma Undershaft
445 S.Kensington Ave.
LaGrange, Ill. 60525

Science must indeed be considered relative to its
historical and social contexts but in principle it is one, unified body
of knowledge. It makes sense to pursue the study of scientific socialism but
transposing the terms into "socialist science", or now into "feminist
science," is not particularly meaningful. Elizabeth Fee ["Is There
a Feminist Science?", S&N No. 4] supports the notion of Jean
B. Miller that the male psyche, as socially created in the western capitalist
world, is peculiarly unable to integrate self‑creative activity with a
primary concern for others. What are we to make of such a thesis as a criterion
for evaluating the comparative contributions of Rosa Luxemburg and V. I. Lenin
to the scientific analysis of imperialism? With all due respect to the need
to explore fully the problems of thought and feelings, the "radical feminist
view of science" pursued by Ms. Fee is diversionary as it stands, needing
much more solid work to make it intellectually convincing.

Robert A. GriffinSouthern Connecticut
State College

EDITOR'S NOTE: What Dr. Fee really advocates
can be summarized in the following excerpts from her paper [S&N No.
4, pp. 48‑49]:

The radical feminist view of science is only one of the forms in which the
growing popular distrust of scientific institutions and authority is expressed
. . . Because science has been presented as an objective force above and beyond
society, and because it has been seen as a monolithic power, it may appear
that the claim of science to be the arbitrator of truth must be accepted or
rejected wholesale.

We need not, however, go so far as to reject the whole human effort to comprehend
the world in rational terms, nor the idea that forms of knowledge can be subjected
to critical evaluation and empirical testing . . .

The radical feminist critique of science and of objectivity, therefore, needs
to be developed in ways which will allow us to identify those aspects of scientific
activity and ideology which need to be questioned and rejected, without at
the same time abandoning the ideal that we can come to an ever more complete
understanding of the natural world through a collective and disciplined process
of investigation and discovery.

Marxist Internationalism

I appreciate very much your efforts in publishing
an interesting journal. I will try to urge my colleagues in other Japanese universities
to subscribe to your journal. Please send me five copies of each issue (Nos.
1 to 4) as well as the bill and subscription forms.

I will urge my colleagues to send you English versions
of their papers, but I am afraid that very few Marxist philosophers and social
scientists in Japan write their works in European languages.

I am president of the Tokyo Ass'n for Japanese‑Vietnamese
Friendship and, in this context, I would like to urge you to send your journal
to Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Social Sciences, 27 Tran Xuan Soan, Hanoi,
Socialist Republic of Vietnam. If you cannot mail the journal to Hanoi directly,
I am ready to forward it there. As Professor at Hiroshima University I have
been also strongly engaged in the struggle against nuclear weaponry and for
human survival.

Note: The exchanges above between Wartofsky and
Mussachia and Talkington illustrate Talkington's typical
ignorance, obtuseness, dogmatism, and Sovietism that dragged down the intellectual
level of his unique journal. It is also remarkable how serious philosophers
and scientists sympathetic to Marxism were able to tolerate this intellectual
sloppiness and insensitivity. RD